Chapter Seven #2
The warship rowed alongside theirs, but the attacking Drowned pulled Lorath’s attention away from it.
A hulking brute had landed on the deck, heavy enough to rock the Arabel and so bloated it seemed ready to burst. It swung a length of old ship’s timber as a club, easily pushing aside Lorath’s strike with his polearm and tipping him off balance.
The creature bore down on him before he could recover, but just then a second figure wheeled through the air above the giant.
She landed on its shoulders and thrust downward with her spear, a strike so quick Lorath almost failed to see it, but the blade penetrated deep into the brute’s chest. Then she launched back into the air and landed on the deck near Lorath as the giant staggered, almost as if it were confused by its mortal injury.
Lorath took its head with his own blade and sent the bulk of its corpse backward into the water with a tremendous splash.
He turned toward the Amazon to thank her.
“You should not be here!” she said, then leapt across the deck toward the bow.
Warriors standing at the stern of the Amazon vessel then threw a grappling line with a heavy hook across the gap between the ships.
The woman who had saved Lorath took the line and tied it around the cleats at the Arabel ’s prow.
“Secure!” she shouted. “Go!”
The warship drum resumed its pounding beat, and the vessel pushed off, swinging its bow outward and around.
Lorath looked across the deck and noticed that several Amazons had remained behind on the Arabel.
A few of them carried large jugs, while the others fought to keep any more of the Drowned from climbing on board.
The line between the two vessels grew taut as the Amazon warship moved into position ahead of them, and Lorath grabbed hold of a rope near the mast.
“Brace!” shouted the woman from the prow.
The Arabel jolted and shuddered as the warship lurched her forward, shaking loose the last few Drowned trying to climb onto the deck.
The warrior at the prow stalked past Lorath down-ship toward the stern, obviously a leader among the women.
The Amazons bearing the jugs followed her, and they proceeded to empty the contents of their jars into the sea behind the ship.
A moment later, one of the Amazons placed a bow in the leader’s hands, and then a flaming arrow.
She took aim and let the arrow fly. Where it landed, the sea erupted in a blaze, illuminating hundreds of Drowned as they thrashed and burned in their wake.
“That’s a nice trick,” Lorath said. “We recently used a similar tactic against—”
The woman lunged, a graceful movement that almost captivated Lorath until he realized she now had the point of her spear at his throat. Those Amazons wielding bows had taken aim at Tyrael, Donan, and Keldon, who looked equally stunned.
The leader stood almost as tall as Lorath, and she was close enough that he could smell her sweat. She wore leather armor embossed with a design that resembled an eagle’s wings across her chest. The firelight behind the ship caught a hint of red in her braided hair.
“You should not be here,” she said again.
“I completely agree with you.” Lorath let his polearm fall and held up his empty hands.
She narrowed her green eyes at him. “Are you pirates? Smugglers?”
“We are travelers,” said Tyrael, sheathing El’druin as he stepped forward. “We came with a petition for your queen but were blown off course on our way toward Temis.”
“Travelers?” she scoffed, turning toward him, at which point something about his appearance seemed to startle her. She recovered quickly. “Only pirates and smugglers travel to Skovos these days. So, I’ll ask again, which are you?”
“I am Faysal,” Tyrael said. “The man before you is Lorath, and that is Donan. This ship belongs to Keldon here.”
“I don’t care about your names,” the woman said. “Only why you are here.”
“We aren’t pirates or smugglers,” Lorath said. “Search the ship if you like. You will find no stolen goods. No cargo.”
“Perhaps you are simply bad at what you do,” she said, then gave an order to the other Amazons: “Bind them!”
Lorath winced as he felt his arms pulled and twisted around behind him, and he chafed at the rough rope used to tie his wrists together.
The Amazons did the same to Tyrael, Donan, and Keldon after taking their weapons, and soon the four of them were seated on the deck amidships in much the same configuration as before, when they were on their feet fighting the Drowned.
The Amazon leader stood near the bow, and ahead of them could be heard the drumming and the warship’s coxswain calling the oar stroke.
Keldon cleared his throat. “You may’ve taken me prisoner on my own ship, but all the same, I’m grateful you came along when you did.”
The leader turned around with irritation. “Consider yourselves very fortunate that none of my sisters died rescuing you from your idiocy.”
“Fortunate, indeed,” Tyrael said. “May we ask what you happened to be doing near Atanos?”
The woman leveled a hard stare at him. “Our duty.”
“And you are obviously very skilled at it,” Lorath said. “May we ask your name?”
She hopped down from the prow and strode along the deck to stand before him, arms folded. “You may call me Captain. And the next one to ask me a question gets thrown overboard.”
Lorath bowed his head. “Understood, Captain.”
She marched toward the stern, and after she had passed out of earshot, Donan leaned his head toward Lorath. “Adreona,” he whispered.
“What?”
“That’s her name. I overheard one of the others say it.”
“Then I guess I wasted my question,” Lorath said. “I should have asked where they’re taking us.”
The Amazons cleared the Arabel ’s deck of the Drowned remains, and after some time, the warship rowed them out of the fog and into the light of a hazy dawn.
The waters around them changed character, growing choppy and slapping the hull as the wind returned.
A large island lay to the south, rising from the sea in stark cliffs and rocky bluffs, surmounted by open green fields.
Atop the spit of highland nearest them, Lorath glimpsed an impressive white temple unlike any he had seen before, hidden among wisps of cloud turned golden by the rising sun.
“We’re east of Atanos,” Keldon said, “so that’ll be Athulua.”
Farther to the east ahead of them, Lorath saw two more islands, though they were still too distant to make out details. “Which would make those Temis and Philios.”
Adreona signaled the forward vessel, and they came to a halt, slackening the line between the ships enough to untether them. Then the Amazon vessel unfurled a large square sail bearing the image of a sword in gleaming copper, and they turned toward starboard, in the direction of Athulua.
The Amazons that remained on the Arabel set to work raising her sails as well.
Lorath expected Keldon to object, but the sailor merely grunted as he craned his neck to watch them.
It probably helped that the Amazons obviously knew their way around a sloop.
The ship was shortly underway, pushing eastward.
Adreona leaned against the forecastle, cleaning the head of her spear.
“We sail to Temis?” Lorath said.
Adreona raised an eyebrow. “Is that a question?”
“An observation.”
“That’s where you claimed to be traveling, is it not?”
“It is,” said Tyrael.
“You may wish it wasn’t,” she said. “Strangers from the continents are not welcome in Skovos. But your fate isn’t mine to decide. That will be up to the queen. I hope for your sake that she is sympathetic toward your petition.”